Japanese people eat with chopsticks, and most chopsticks used in Japan are made of wood. Chopsticks are also used in South Korea, North Korea, China, and Viet Nam, while in Southeast Asia they are normally used only for eating noodles.
Japanese food culture and chopsticks are inseparable. Most Japanese people have their own personal pair of lacquered chopsticks at home that is washed and reused like cutlery. However, when we eat out or buy cold boxed rice lunches, we usually use the disposable chopsticks provided and throw them away after use.
Disposable chopsticks are said to be unique to Japan and are thought to have appeared 300 to 400 years ago during the Edo period when buckwheat noodle shopkeepers introduced them for sanitary reasons. Today about 25 billion pairs of these chopsticks are used annually in Japan - about 200 pairs per capita.
Disposable chopsticks have become controversial as a symbol of throwaway culture and a cause of deforestation, and various efforts have been made to deal with these problems. Approaches include;
(1) creating chopsticks that don't damage forests, but in fact, function to protect forests;
(2) recycling used disposable chopsticks into paper and particleboard;
(3) carrying one's own chopsticks to use rather than disposable chopsticks when eating out - the so-called "My Chopsticks" movement.
Disposable Chopsticks Made of Domestic Tree Plantation Thinnings
About 96 percent of the disposable chopsticks consumed in Japan originate in other countries. As imports increased rapidly in the late 1980s, domestic production of disposable chopsticks decreased drastically. Of imported disposable chopsticks, 98 percent are from China, and the rest are from Indonesia, other Southeast Asian countries and Chile in South America.
Domestically produced disposable chopsticks are mainly made of lumber remnants. In the spirit of "mottai-nai," or "waste does want not," these small pieces of wood, which otherwise may be discarded, are turned into products. However, in general, Japanese domestic lumber doesn't sell well under the pressure of cheap foreign lumber, and more and more of its tree plantations are under-maintained or completely abandoned. One result is that floods and mudslides are occurring more frequently, raising concerns about the weakened water-retaining capacity of mountainsides and disaster control. Using small-diameter logs thinned from tree plantations as a raw material for disposable chopsticks would contribute to protecting Japan's steep mountain forests.
Under these circumstances, more and more restaurants have started using domestic chopsticks. One of the first groups to tackle this issue was a non-profit organization, the JUON Network, which worked to promote the use of disposable chopsticks from domestic plantation thinnings. This network was established by an alliance of university co-ops and encourages co-op stores and cafeterias at universities to adopt chopsticks made of local thinnings. The chopsticks are manufactured by people living at facilities for the mentally retarded, one in Tokushima prefecture, SELP Hashikura (SELP standing for Support for Employment, Living and Participation), and another in Saitama prefecture, Konan Ai-no-Ie. The network consists of about 70 universities and consumed 7.5 million pairs of these chopsticks in 2005. Although they are more expensive than chopsticks made in China, the number of participating universities is increasing due to their progressive image of helping protect forests and create jobs for the disabled.